Beginning of a tech face-off? Google pulls YouTube off the Amazon Echo Show

The world is well aware of the kind of ‘bonhomie’ rivals Microsoft and Apple shared with each other during the 1980s. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs never got along too well at that time.

In the present world though, with common platforms and operating systems, tech firms can’t afford to be at loggerheads. Perhaps, spoken too soon.

As per a report in popular tech blog The Verge, Google has decided to stop allowing Amazon’s smart speaker Echo Show access to YouTube videos.

Is this the start of a new face-off in the world of technology?

The report further states that if one asks the smart speaker to show a YouTube video, it fails and Amazon’s smart assistant Alexa just says this: Currently, Google is not supporting YouTube on Echo Show.

Amazon, in its reply, as reported by The Verge, said: Google made a change today at around 3 pm. YouTube used to be available to our shared customers on Echo Show. As of this afternoon, Google has chosen to no longer make YouTube available on Echo Show, without explanation and without notification to customers. There is no technical reason for that decision, which is disappointing and hurts both of our customers.

Google, on the other hand, has said that “Amazon’s implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creating a broken user experience. We hope to be able to reach an agreement and resolve these issues soon,” as per the report.

It is worth noting that Google itself has a smart home speaker Google Home that competes directly with Amazon’s Echo range.

The smart home speaker market could perhaps be the next big market to make big bucks for tech firms. Reportedly, Facebook is also planning to come up with a home speaker of its own in the future.